Buhari meets with Lawal Daura with a view to bringing him back into government as elections loom

PRESIDENT Muhammadu Buhari has met with the former director-general of the Department of State Services (DSS) Lawal Daura with a view to offering him a new appointment in the  run-up to next year's elections.

On August 7, acting president Professor Osinbajo dismissed Mr Daura after he got men of the DSS to invade the National Assembly and following his sacking, he was placed under house arrest. Mr Daura is currently being investigated for corruption by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) but despite this, his kinsmen have been piling pressure on President Buhari to reinstate him.

Over the weekend, President Buhari met with Mr Daura at the presidential villa and they discussed the security situation in the country, deliberating on the resurgence of the Boko Haram insurgency in some parts of the northeast. Among the matters they discussed were the plight of Leah Sharibu and Boko Haram’s execution of Hauwa Amina Liman, one of the two kidnapped Red Cross workers.

Apparently, since Mr Daura left office, there have been some intelligence gaps in the system, which President Buhari is looking to fill. President Buhari is now said to have to make a decision about whether to recall Mr Daura in the light of the Boko Haram resurgence and the growing ethno-religious tension in some states over the last three months.

One presidency source said: Their meeting had to do with a pending report on the invasion of the National Assembly before the president and the nation’s security apparatchiks.  Apart from reading the report, the president used the opportunity to hear Daura’s side of the story on the security siege to the National Assembly by DSS operatives.

"While some want the president to foreclose Daura’s case, others have insisted that the president should re-engage the former director-general of the DSS. Forces opposed to Daura have defended his sack by vice president Yemi Osinbajo as a timely decision to save the nation’s democracy and they also see Daura’s return under any guise as a slight on the  vice president and a signal that the presidency is disunited.

"They also claim that Daura did more damage to the security system and brought  much strain to the principle of separation of powers by the three arms of government, including  the executive, the legislature and the judiciary. They pointed to the  arbitrary invasion, arrest and detention of judges by the DSS.”

However, to Mr Daura’s backers, the larger picture of the nation’s security is more important than any crimes he may have committed. They claim that Mr Daura’s contributions far outweigh the infraction of August 7, more so when he insisted that he did not act alone.